A selection of posters from the Irish Anti Apartheid Movement. The address on the posters is that of Kader Asmal , co founder of the IAAM, who later became a minister in South Africas first post apartheid government. The IAAM were founded in 1963 and continued until the early 1990s.
(the following is from a speech made by Louise Asmal about the Irish Anti Apartheid Movement)
“We had very little funding that we did not raise ourselves – and here I should pay tribute to the many musicians who sang for us at concerts, and often turned down lucrative offers to tour South Africa as well. Poets like Seamus Heaney read for us, Sean O’Casey and Samuel Beckett were among the first signatories of a list of playwrights who refused to allow their plays to be performed in South Africa.
But of course it was the sports boycott which aroused the most passion and the most controversy. (1969-’70 Springbok rugby tour – 8000).
In 1984 Mary Manning, a young trade unionist working in a supermarket in Dublin, refused to register the sale of an Outspan grapefruit. She and 10 others who supported her were suspended, and went on strike for three and a half years. For those three and a half years we organized a Saturday picket outside the store, but management refused to respond to our letters and refused to meet us. In 1987 the Irish Government imposed sanctions on South African fruit and produce.”

You will see ‘Outspan’ and ‘Cape’ fruit refered to in one of the posters below.

I am trying to contact Mary Manning the woman who led the infamous strikes in 1984 . If you can help in any way with a contact address or email I would be most grateful. Also do you have any copies of papers reporting the strikes etc ? I am a teacher and this information would be very helpful for our Understanding Apartheid Module.
Kindest Regards
Ms.Caitriona Ryan